The rise of comedic oligarchy

IN BOTH FILM AND TV, THE intense appetite for comedy has become almost -- well, laughable. A major talent agency, UTA, now bills itself as the principal purveyor of laughs. Mosaic Media Group, run by Eric Gold and Jimmy Miller, has become a money tree as well as a laugh factory. I haven't checked, but I suspect even the guys who manufacture laugh tracks are raking it in.

Now, I'm delighted that studio suits have become fixated on comic relief (we all need a break from feel-good reality shows), but I wonder if Hollywood comedy isn't getting too inbred. Packages spawned by Ben Stiller, Judd Apatow, Vince Vaughn, Jack Black or Will Ferrell seem to turn up in Daily Variety two or three times a week. Surely these guys are getting the last laugh on all of us; one imagines them sitting at a Starbucks popping one-liners that instantly become $20 million deals.

I'd prefer to see these guys make a killing than Mark Burnett, but I also believe they should all take a deep breath and think about their craft. Comedies about blind dates, first sexual encounters, summer camp, dodgeball games, etc., may quickly run their course.

So here's a recommendation: The purveyors of comedy pitches should marshal these instant millionaires on a retreat to review great comedies of the past. No, go back beyond Woody Allen -- even as far back as, say, Charlie Chaplin.

A fresh look at Chaplin's "Modern Times," for example, would convey several precepts that might prove relevant to today's pitchmen.

• Comedy can be poignant as well as laugh-inducing. The underdogs and misfits in Chaplin's movies were lovable as well as loathable.

•  Desperation, not affluence, produces the best comedy. When he made "Modern Times," Chaplin was panicked that silents were history and that the Little Tramp had outlived his moment. As a result, Chaplin's characters were deliciously vulnerable.

• Great stories take time to gestate. Before starting "Modern Times," Chaplin took off four years to travel abroad and clear his head. He returned in 1932 to create classic comedic scenes about man-eating assembly lines and rebellious workers, not to mention his famously inept automated feeding machine.

To be sure, some of Chaplin's movies tanked. Critics attacked him for over-reaching. Eventually he was forced into exile in Switzerland.

Chaplin may not have had a funny third act, but he kept growing as an artist. And he never devised a $20 million package at a Starbucks.

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The final divorce settlement announced last week between Miramax and Disney brought particular satisfaction to one player who was sitting on the sidelines at the finale. Jim Wiatt, who runs the William Morris office, quietly played a major role in bringing together the principals. When talks broke down, Wiatt brokered a secret summit between Michael Eisner and Harvey Weinstein at the Bel-Air Hotel, and later orchestrated a peace meeting between Bob Iger and the Weinsteins. Wiatt sat in on some of the negotiations to ensure an atmosphere of amity.

Wiatt's role represented a throwback to the Lew Wasserman era when the MCA chief would emerge from his Black Tower on ambassadorial missions.

What did Wiatt have to gain? Surely this was one motivation: At a time when the fraternity of "buyers" is rapidly diminishing, Wiatt felt it was in the interest of his (and other) talent agencies to do whatever he could to keep at least one more on life support.

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While Wiatt's agency, William Morris, made a showbiz event of its 100th birthday seven years ago, younger tenpercenteries as a rule do little to celebrate their milestones. CAA this year reached the age of 30, but since it essentially reinvented itself ten years ago in its post-Ovitzian era, the agency seems confused about which dates marked its true birth.

Similarly, a much younger agency, Endeavor, has quietly reached the age of 10, but the champagne corks aren't popping, possibly because everyone who works at this take-no-prisoners company seems too busy pursuing day-to-day combat missions. Yet when Endeavor opened shop a decade ago -- its initial weeks seemed like outtakes from "The Italian Job" -- few in the industry gave it a chance for survival.

The dire forecasts proved incorrect -- indeed, Endeavor is firmly established in the circle of the top five agencies. And while almost every week brings rumors of possible consolidation and acquisition, it seems likely that the Big Five will remain separate. The task of negotiating a deal among professional negotiators makes the six-month Disney-Miramax wrestling match seem like child's play.

So in quietly celebrating their anniversaries, the agencies would do well to remember that, just because the ranks of buyers are thinning, the ranks of sellers must follow in lockstep. Competition is bracing -- especially among professional competitors.

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The giant media companies are structured as ponderous pyramids and, as such, demonstrate great difficulty in disclosing their management changes. Last week, for example, Paramount formally announced the appointment of Gail Berman as production president fully one week after everyone who cared learned about it. Three months earlier, news of Brad Grey's appointment as Berman's boss leaked out ahead of the announcement, and word that Peter Ligouri would succeed Berman as head of Fox Entertainment also preceded the corporate release.

All of which raises the question: Why do companies bother issuing announcements anyway? While corporate hierarchs believe they dwell in a cocoon of secrecy, everyone around them is obsessively trading information.

It was William Goldman who famously observed that, in filmmaking, "no one knows anything." In corporate life, however, the opposite is true: Everyone knows everything.